Because He Could
by uzumaki rakku
Summary: Chronicling the repeated attempts of Hatake Kakashi — who isn't an Unknown Shinobi and doesn't put away his porn or be on time because he can — to return to ANBU, where they teach you not to scream... all the while annoying the girl at the missions desk.


**Summary: _Chronicling the repeated attempts of Hatake Kakashi — who isn't an Unknown Shinobi and doesn't put away his porn or be on time because he can — to return to ANBU, where they teach you not to scream... all the while annoying the girl at the missions desk._**

**...This is madness. OTL**

**As shown in the bizarre summary, related to my other fics _You Learn Not to Scream, The Unknown Shinobi, The Girl at the Missions Desk, _and_ Licence to be Weird._ XD **

**There's also some hinting at a pairing somewhere near the end, but not too much. :3**

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The shinobi with _(at least)_ two masks of different materials and _(only)_ two eyes of different colours was something of a legend within ANBU.

The man with a series of strange books and a series of strange excuses was the strongest jounin in Konoha.

_[Hatake Kakashi didn't bother putting away his porn and didn't bother being on time because he could.]_

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"What are _you_ doing here?" the kunoichi behind the desk in the ANBU office demanded, blunt as she had always been.

Kakashi shrugged, and let his shoulders settle into a slouch. "Checking if there are any missions to spare."

_"Here?"_

"Yes, here," he replied blandly. "Something the matter?"

"You're retired."

"Ouch," his tone was lined with mock-hurt. "Must you put it in such a way? Surely I'm not that old."

"Uniform. Mask." She gestured at his unrepentantly green jounin vest, and then at the rest of his clothes. "And you're not on _our_ active duty list anymore."

Kakashi only shrugged again. "Maa, I just wanted to occupy my time." With some reluctance he straightened a little, and added, "Efficiently."

"You're a jounin-sensei. You have students."

"Had," he corrected.

She tossed a bloodstained scroll into the bin. "They're not dead, as far as I know."

"They don't need me anymore."

The kunoichi was unmoved. "I wouldn't know about that, and it's not any of my business. But what I do know is that _we_ don't need your talents here."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes very slightly. "Do you need a demonstration, then, to see that my skills are still sharp?"

"I assume they are sharper now, but that is irrelevant." She matched his steely glare through the eyeholes of her mask. "We don't take back ex-agents unless it's necessary, however capable they may be."

His voice remained perfectly even. "Why?"

"People break," she said, flatly. "Then they join us. Then we break them too but they also put themselves back together while working as one of us, and we make sure they don't break again. Then they quit, because they don't need us anymore, and we don't need them either. It's no different for you: you don't need us."

Kakashi said nothing.

"And you have students. We try not to take on people who still have something, because we can."

Finally he sighed. "...Very well, then. I'll leave you to your work." He turned to go.

"You are the first person in the history of ANBU to try and come back," she commented dryly just before he reached the door. "Was it due to insanity? Everyone knows you were our best, and I've observed that extremely strong shinobi feel rather... at liberty to be odd."

"I was bored," came the casual reply. "Things get almost too quiet when they're... off. Training." Without him.

She snorted, neither sympathetic nor unkind. "Go read your book. Isn't that what it's there for?"

There was a brief moment of silence.

"Hmm, you said something?"

The door closed behind him. The ANBU shook her head in exasperation, then continued sorting out the mission reports.

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_[In ANBU, they teach you not to scream.]_

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When a certain jounin strolled into her office exactly one year later, he was met with a single flat "What."

"I hear you have some of those unranked missions piling up," Kakashi shrugged, not looking up from his book.

Her reply was short and to the point. "No."

It didn't surprise him. "I'm the only one who's capable of and willing to handle them."

"I do not assign missions to anyone outside ANBU," she snapped, frowning, because there was something _strange_ about the air in the room. "And you are not allowed to rejoin. So go read your book and take a few A-ranks if you must, just _stop_ coming here."

A scroll rolled off her desk, but did not hit the floor because Konoha's fastest (living) shinobi was in the room. The ANBU tensed.

She had not even seen him move.

"I'm waiting for the next issue," Kakashi shrugged as he straightened, scroll in one hand and orange book in the other. "I need something to occupy my time." He slid the novel into his weapons pouch and raised a hand to his face, as if to brush his hair out of his eyes—

And reality itself seemed to _twist,_ in the space right next to the kunoichi's desk, even as she threw herself away from it. The jounin dragged his gaze across the room, Sharingan spinning _(and shitshitshit how did she not even _notice_ him pushing up his hitai-ate when he was _right in front of her_)_ and she could _feel_ the chakra in the air, trying to pull everything into a vortex.

He covered his eye again, and it stopped.

"Unreal," she whispered, stunned. "What the hell did you..."

Kakashi smiled as though nothing had happened, his right eye closing into a curve. "Maa, sorry about that~" His tone seemed light-hearted, but when he opened his eye it was dead serious. "By the way, can I keep this?"

She stared at him in confusion, then realized that he was holding the information scroll for the exact type of mission he wanted.

_And this is why I hate dealing with jounin,_ she thought fiercely. _They're all completely mad and infuriatingly skilled – this one in particular._

"...Do as you like," she finally sighed, sinking into her chair. "But is that power really worth it?" The air almost twisted again, but instead of alarm she felt a vague sense of irritation.

Kakashi tilted his head. _"'A shinobi must prepare before it is too late to,'"_ he quoted wryly, with heavy irony in his tone. "That is all."

"You are crazy." She uttered the words just before he left the room.

He didn't bother with a reply.

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_[Following what the many Shinobi Rules demand, He was fully sensible of how disadvantageous unpreparedness could be And had everything necessary to the Standard Shinobi: A flak jacket, communication radio, sealing scroll, and headband.]_

So little was needed by the common man to survive...

But legends were always paid for in blood – the blood of others, and the blood of those legends themselves.

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"Go away."

He blinked dazedly, as if just realising where he was.

There had been amused murmurs from several ANBU, about how _Ookami-senpai _of all people had frozen like a statue for several long seconds when he was 'glomped' by their new Hokage... and then actually _returned the hug._

She had merely raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the news, and mentally prepared herself for another unwelcome visit.

And so, when a crimson-faced Hatake Kakashi slunk into her office, practically hiding behind his green book, she immediately levelled her flattest and most unimpressed stare at him. To her chagrin it had no effect at all.

"Go away," she repeated, then gave it up as a lost cause after her words _bounced off_ him in the same manner as her stare.

He eventually spoke after five whole minutes of being ignored, voice a little shaky. "I wish to protect him."

_Oh._

She decided to ignore him for five more minutes, simply because she could.

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Kohana shook her head at the man and sighed, deeply, with all the exasperation she had ever felt towards all the jounin of her village.

"Fine, you win."

She threw a mask at him, and tried not to snort when he almost missed such a _slow-travelling_ object.

"You aren't allowed on active duty until you're..." She paused to stare at him, suddenly having to fight the insane urge to laugh. "...No, never mind. You won't be 'sane' or 'normal' for a long time anyway."

_At least the second mask will hide his face completely,_ Kohana mused. _I've never seen anyone blush _that _hard._

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Kohana knew she was probably a little crazy when she'd decided to join ANBU.

She did not _need_ them and neither did they need her, but she felt like doing it... because she could.

And she probably had more common sense than anyone else in there anyway.

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_There was a girl who sat behind the missions desk in the ANBU building._

_And everyone who came by the office was crazy, but she did not actually mind._

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**Random and somewhat irrelevant note: Kohana is probably too old to be called a "girl" (she's, uh, six years older than Naruto... maybe?) but nobody in ANBU actually knows how old she is so they just unconsciously think of her as someone of a constant, youngish age. XD**

**The unofficial title of this fic is Kakashi vs Kohana XDDDDDDDDDDDD**


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